Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport

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Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport
IATA: MSY - ICAO: KMSY
Summary
Airport type public
Operator City of New Orleans
Serves New Orleans, Louisiana
Elevation AMSL 4 ft (1.2 m)
Coordinates 29° 59' 36" N

90° 15' 30" W

Runways
Direction Length Surface
ft m
10/28 10,104 3,080 Paved
1/19 7,001 2,134 Paved
6/24 3,570 1,088 Paved

Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (IATA: MSY, ICAO: KMSY), formerly Moisant Field, is located in Kenner, Louisiana and is the primary commercial airport for the greater New Orleans area of southeast Louisiana. Currently, MSY serves nearly 10 million passengers per year, nearly all of them non-connecting.

Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport used to be a major hub for Latin American travel from the United States. Nowadays, that travel mostly goes through other cities which serve as gateway hubs for international legacy-airlines.

This airport was named after Louis Armstrong, a famous jazz musician from New Orleans. It replaced the original New Orleans Lakefront Airport on Lake Ponchartrain, which kept the NEW and KNEW airport codes, and now serves general aviation. The National Weather Service forecast office for the area moved to the suburb of Slidell, and now uses non-airport codes LIX and KLIX.

MSY is owned by the city of New Orleans (Orleans Parish), but is wholly located in the city of Kenner, which is in neighboring Jefferson Parish.

Contents

History

The airport was originally named after daredevil aviator John Moisant, who died in an airplane crash on this land (which was devoted to farming at the time) in 1910. The abbreviation MSY was derived from Moisant Stock Yards, as the old airport kept NEW.

Plans for Moisant Field were begun in 1940, as New Orleans' older Shushan Airport – now New Orleans Lakefront Airport (NEW), still serving private and corporate aircraft – was in need of expansion or replacement. With World War II the land became a government air base. It was returned to civilian control after the war, and commercial service began at Moisant Field in May of 1946.

On 19 September 1947, the airport was temporarily shut down as it was flooded under 2 feet of water by the 1947 Fort Lauderdale Hurricane.

Hurricane Katrina

The airport was closed to commercial air traffic on August 28, 2005, shortly before Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, and it remained closed as floods affected the city. The Associated Press reported on August 31 that MSY would receive humanitarian flights, and that the airport "has no significant airfield damage and had no standing water in aircraft movement areas", although the airport did evidently "[sustain] damage to its roofs, hangars and fencing." [1] In early September, the airport was open only to military aircraft and humanitarian flights, and was serving as a staging center for evacuees.

On September 10, a spokeswoman for the airport, Michelle Duffourc, announced that MSY would reopen to commercial flights on September 13, 2005. The airport opened with four flights operated by Delta Airlines to Atlanta, and Northwest Airlines to Memphis. Slowly, service from other carriers began to resume with limited service by Southwest, Continental, and American Airlines. Eventually, all carriers announced their return with limited service, except Frontier Airlines which decided to discontinue service to the area due to the disaster. The airline has stated that it will resume services once New Orleans gets back on its feet but has cancelled all flights, sold its slots, and offered its staff jobs at other stations. [2] Most regular service had returned by the begining of October.

International services

As of 2005, the only international services from MSY are provided by Air Canada to Toronto and TACA to San Pedro Sula in Honduras. However, in the 1980s, the city was once served by British Airways's flight between London and Mexico City using Lockheed L1011 aircraft, which made an intermediate stop at MSY. National Airlines also flew nonstop to Amsterdam, Paris (Orly), and Frankfurt from MSY using DC10 aircraft. MSY has enjoyed 26 nonstop international destinations in its history-- six of them intercontinental.

Terminals and airlines

Armstrong International has two terminals, East and West, connected by a central ticketing alley. Attached are four concourses, A, B, C, and D.

Concourse A

  • Northwest Airlines (Detroit, Memphis, Minneapolis/St. Paul)
  • US Airways (Charlotte, New York/LaGuardia, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Washington/Reagan)

Concourse B

  • Southwest Airlines (Baltimore/Washington, Birmingham (AL), Chicago/Midway, Dallas/Love, Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood, Houston/Hobby, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Nashville, Oakland, Orlando, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Diego, Tampa)

Concourse C

Except for certain Canadian or small-jet operations, all international arrivals are handled by Concourse C.

Concourse D

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